


The Most Beautiful Melodies

by mdr_24601



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Annie Cresta-centric, District 4 (Hunger Games), F/M, Musician Annie Cresta, Piano, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24709522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdr_24601/pseuds/mdr_24601
Summary: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” ― Leonard BernsteinTo the Capitol, her music was a mediocre talent from an ignored victor.To Annie, it was everything.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	The Most Beautiful Melodies

They wanted her to have a talent. On top of everything else she had given them—her humanity, her sanity, her life as she knew it—the Capitol still wanted more. They took and they took and they were never satisfied. 

Not with her, anyway. She wasn’t supposed to win. 

“It’s just a formality,” Finnick had told her, shortly after her arrival back home. “You don’t actually have to be good at it. Unless there is something you’re secretly good at?”

His smile was small and suggestive, and Annie shrugged mildly. “Even if there was, I wouldn’t share it. I don’t want them to take anything else from me.”

Finnick had only nodded. He understood the sentiment, in the way all victors did. No need to give them anything else. Not unless they directly asked, anyway, because then it was required of them. 

They didn’t ask Annie for anything. They asked around her. They asked Finnick, or Mags, or anyone besides her. As though the mad girl couldn’t speak for herself. Better to ask someone competent than deal with the unstable Annie Cresta. 

She was lucky, though, in many ways. Attention from the Capitol was rarely a good thing. 

“Annie?”

Finnick’s voice shook her from her thoughts. She gave a small hum of acknowledgement, glancing his way. 

“Do you have a talent in mind?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “I suppose someone else should pick for me.”

Finnick gave her a half smile. “Now, what good would that do? It’s your talent.”

And he looked at her then, really looked. Finnick saw her for what she was. He didn’t look around her or defer his questions to a supposedly more capable person. He just looked, and asked, and everything was normal. 

Annie said the first thing that came to mind. 

The piano was delivered to her house three days later. 

* * *

She wasn’t very good, not at first. Her fingers would clumsily flit around the keys, hitting wrong keys or stumbling to create an awkward and dissonant combination of notes. 

Not that it mattered much. Her Victory Tour was still months away, plenty of time to perfect her talent. And if she were lucky, the Capitol would forget about her entirely once her Tour was over, and that would be that. 

But, of course, nothing was ever that simple. 

Annie had been surprised when the piano, a beautiful mahogany creation, had also come with sheet music. It was all Capitol approved and unfamiliar to her. Annie didn’t play it. 

Instead, she played what she knew. Traditional District Four melodies; everything from wedding chorales to sea shanties to whatever her mind could come up with. It was relaxing, in a way, to watch as her fingers moved across the keys, creating beautiful sounds. 

Sometimes she messed up. Or forgot notes, hit the wrong key, played something incorrectly. Annie didn’t mind. Music was music. Correct or incorrect, gorgeous or haunting, it all had the same affect.

When she woke up screaming from nightmares, she would go downstairs and sit down at the piano and release her emotions onto the keys. Finnick, who shared her bed most nights, didn’t seem to mind. 

“Lovely piece you’ve got there.” He had slid up from behind her. Annie inhaled sharply and her hands hovered above the keys, unmoving. Once she realized it was Finnick behind her and not a Career tribute about to press a knife to her throat, the tension melted from her shoulders. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Annie said softly, turning around to face him. “Did I wake you?”

Finnick shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, and it was welcome. I like hearing you play. Did you make that up?”

“Make what up?” she asked, momentarily confused. Her face flushed red as she realized what he was referring to. “Oh. I’m not sure. I just play what I feel.”

Finnick nodded and sat next to her on the bench. “Mind if I join you?”

Annie smiled softly. “I don’t see why not.”

He placed his hands on the keys and gently pressed down. “Like this?” The resulting sound was dissonant and clashed. Annie resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose in distaste. 

“Not quite. It sounds better if you...” she hesitantly adjusted his fingers to make a chord. “There. Try that.”

The chord felt complete and the notes complimented each other. Finnick smiled at the success. “You’re good at this. Sure you’ve never played before?”

“I never have,” Annie said softly. “But I used to watch my mother play.”

“I bet she was good.”

His free hand had situated near hers on the bench, their fingers brushing. Annie didn’t want to bring it to his attention in case he moved, so she said, “She was. She got paid to play at weddings.”

“Weddings?” Finnick mused. “Really?”

“Yes,” Annie said. Laughing, she asked, “Why? Is that surprising to you?”

“Not at all. Now I know where you get your talent from.”

Annie only smiled, and Finnick brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Play something for me?” he whispered in her ear. 

She settled her fingers on the keys and began to play, a gentle and soft melody that crescendoed into something powerful and encompassing. This music, she realized, was not for the Capitol. It was for herself and for Finnick. He asked her to play and she did, and always would. 

The Capitol would never get a single song from her. 

But Annie was content giving Finnick all the songs in the world. 

* * *

As the Victory Tour approached and Capitol citizens made themselves at home in her house, Annie slipped away. Her escort and prep team and stylist had caught notice of the piano sitting in her foyer, and were eager to hear her play, but Annie was already gone. 

“Annie, dear, why don’t you play us a little something?” her escort trilled. 

There were cameras pointed at her and Annie was finding it difficult to breathe. Suddenly, her mind had forgotten every song she’d ever played, but that was probably for the best. Annie had no interest in playing for them, anyway. 

Finnick’s hand brushed her arm subtly, and for a split second, it was only her and Finnick. But Annie was sent spinning back to reality upon hearing her escort’s heels click on the tiled floor. 

“No, thank you,” Annie said politely, as if she were declining an offer instead of disregarding a demand. She was not convenient or compliant. And lucky for her, she didn’t have to be, because she was mad. 

And mad girls didn’t have to play the piano if they didn’t want to. 

“Why don’t we go outside and enjoy the beautiful weather?” Finnick asked, smoothly covering up any error she had caused. Finnick was malleable in a way that she wasn’t; always stretching and molding to cover up any mistake or flaw. Because that was his job. 

And her job was to play the piano, and she didn’t. And Annie knew that somehow, somebody was paying for her to keep the freedom of denying the Capitol a song. 

She took one look at Finnick and his inviting (fake) smile, and it didn’t take much speculating to guess who was paying for her to go unnoticed. 

* * *

The melody that spilled from her fingers could only be described as enthralling. Annie played happy songs on the good days and sad songs on the bad days, but this was neither happy nor sad. It was only music, too complex to put a definitive label on. 

That was one of the things Annie liked about music. It was anything and everything; complex and layered. It was no one particular emotion, and it didn’t fit with one particular label. It just was. 

The early morning sunlight had begun to stream from the windows, illuminating the room and bathing the floor in warm spots of sun. Finnick walked in a moment later, his hair still dripping from a morning swim. There was a brief moment where the sunlight caught his eyes and Annie was certain she had never seen a green so beautiful, but it was gone in an instant. 

“Good morning,” Finnick said with a small smile. “What were you playing?”

Annie shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know.”

He just laughed and joined her on the bench as he often did, just to hear her play. “Could you play it again?”

She nodded and placed her fingers on the keys, poised to begin the song. Before she could start, Finnick’s hands were settled comfortably on top of hers. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Smiling at the way his hands felt on hers, she began the song again. 

Annie’s practiced hands moved deftly across the keys, with Finnick’s hands following her every move. Together, they moved as one entity, and it felt like her hands had no other purpose than to guide his hands across the piano, creating music. 

As a victor, it felt good to create instead of destroy. To heal instead of break. Music had done that for Annie. It belonged to her and now it belonged to Finnick also, and she found herself to be strangely glad for that. 

Their hands remained still, their fingers touching, moments after the song had ended. The room was silent and all Annie could hear was Finnick’s breathing in her ear. 

“That was beautiful,” he said after a pause. “What’s the song about?”

“Anything you want, I suppose. It’s about whatever it made you feel.”

Finnick pulled her close and Annie could feel her heartbeat thrumming quickly in her chest. His breath was warm on her skin when he responded. “Do you know what it made me feel?”

“What?”

His lips brushed hers softly before Finnick pulled away. His response was quiet, but certain. “Hope.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not exactly sure what this is, but it came to mind and I loved the idea, so I decided to share it. The idea of Annie playing the piano wasn't something I had really considered before, but it felt fitting, and I hope you all feel the same. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, thank you for reading.


End file.
